FIR THE LOVE OF IT

STOCKTON - Wayne Segale, 78 years strong, is still standing at the corner of Benjamin Holt Drive and Pacific Avenue. He's got an apple for you, a friendly hello and the perfect Christmas tree.

Kevin Parrish

STOCKTON - Wayne Segale, 78 years strong, is still standing at the corner of Benjamin Holt Drive and Pacific Avenue. He's got an apple for you, a friendly hello and the perfect Christmas tree.

He's been there - for three or four busy late-autumn weeks - every year for 53 years.

In a world of artificial trees, big-box competition and chop-your-own tree farms in the Sierra Nevada, Segale sells 1,200 to 1,500 trees every year.

So does his 3-year-old Lodi operation, Segale Brothers Christmas Trees in the Grape Festival parking lot at the intersection of Lockeford Street and Cherokee Lane.

Both places put stands on for free or wrap your tree, also free. They will put trees on top of cars, and they also deliver.

"We're in full-service mode. We have to do all the detailed things to survive," Segale said. "I've got a wonderful bunch of guys working for me - and they work hard, and they're fast."

Both Segale lots sell silvertip, wild Douglas fir, Noble and Turkish fir trees. All but the silvertip come from the same tree farm, Kintigh's Mountain Home Ranch east of Eugene, Ore.

Before the first tree is shipped, Segale, retired from his job as a manufacturing supervisor, makes a personal trip north to inspect "his trees."

Prices range from $19 for a smaller evergreen to $450 for one of the giant trees destined for the lobby of a business or bank.

All told, the extended Segale family is marking its 75th year selling Christmas trees.

Wayne Segale is the son of Paul Segale, one of two brothers who were Christmas tree wholesalers in Calaveras County in the 1930s and '40s. Wayne Segale started the Stockton lot in 1959, three years after graduating from University of the Pacific. "I was trying to make enough money for a refrigerator."

He had recently married his Calaveras High School sweetheart.

Gwen Segale, also 78 and also a Pacific grad, has been helping out with the tree lot ever since. A retired schoolteacher, she's one of two cashiers. The other is longtime friend and Stockton neighbor, Jo "Mama Jo" Giometti, who is 85.

"I like to be where he is," said Gwen Segale, pointing at her husband of 57 years.

Wayne Segale's cellphone rings. It's a trucker in Yreka, and the two parties are making plans to beat an oncoming series of storms. Business is picking up. The gregarious Wayne Segale greets families shopping for a tree, some of them by name. "It's the third generation for me." And he said he'll be back at Benjamin Holt and Pacific next year for a 76th holiday season.

His wife, eyes twinkling, is beaming from inside the cashier's booth. Is this a tree lot love story?